David Bloomberg

(1933-) Cape Town attorney, liberal politician, anti-apartheid campaigner, the youngest mayor in Cape Town’s history and a theatre director. The son of Abe Bloomberg, a prominent lawyer, socialite and one of Cape Town’s most successful mayors, and Miriam Bloomberg, a former ballerina. He studied at the University of Cape Town and entered his father’s law firm, becoming a well known advocate. he was also a member of the Cape Town City Council for twenty years, becoming a mayor conspicuous for his interest in the arts and for his defence of the less privileged members of the Cape community. He married Toby Fine, also a distinguished ballet dancer. In 1987, he moved to England with this wife, and has lived there since, while remaining a South Afriucan citizen. He first came into the public eye however as a theatre producer and director. His father had a big house in Constantia, Cape Town, and in the 1960's David converted an outbuilding into a theatre called The Barn, where he produced and directed a number of significant plays, using top-class South African actors, including Helen Bourne, Leonard Schach, Johann Nell, Yvonne Bryceland, Percy Sieff, Erica Rogers, Cobus Rossouw, and many others. Among the plays he directed over the years were ***, ***. (??) He later went into partnership with Percy Tucker and started presenting tours of international artists and entertainers, calling the business South African Theatrical Enterprises. Together they brought Murray Banks to South Africa in 1960. A perceptive and creative director, he travelled abroad looking for plays, and argued against the move towards the cultural boycott. He was for a while also on the CAPAB board and a theatre columnist for the Cape Times. His autobiography, My Life , was published by Fernwood Press, Simon’s Town, in 2007.

Sources

Toffoli and Silber, 1989; Tucker, 1997

http://www.artsmart.co.za/literature/archive/1113.html

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